


Burial

by RunawayCaboose



Series: Bury Me Here [2]
Category: Sing Street (2016)
Genre: Angst, Disreality, Kind of apocalyptic, M/M, Magic, Surrealism, i guess?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-12
Updated: 2017-03-12
Packaged: 2018-10-03 11:41:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,795
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10244483
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RunawayCaboose/pseuds/RunawayCaboose
Summary: Conor has grown accustomed to life in Bury, the strange near-monotony that never seems the same. But then Bury starts to change and people are losing their powers and there is something sinister gathering on the horizon that no one can see.





	

There is a problem in Bury, a storm brewing on the horizon that Conor didn’t create and can’t control. It is there, sitting like a wolf stalking sheep, just waiting for its time to strike while the people in the town go along with their small, strange lives, unaware of its presence just above the horizon line.

Conor’s not sure how long he’s been in Bury now. It’s been years, maybe five, probably more. Time is weird, he thinks his clock doesn’t keep up with the real time and he’d invest in a sun dial, except the sun never shines anytime other than Saturday night. He’s still happy in Bury, happy with Eamon. He’s not entirely sure if marriage exists in his town, but he wants to find out.

It’s Wednesday night when Eamon walks through the door, looking worried, perplexed. It’s a strange emotion to see on Eamon’s face. 

“What’s wrong?” Conor asks, sitting Eamon down in one of their living room chairs. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, yeah, I am, just…” Eamon trails off and silence fills the room, the clock isn’t ticking or maybe it has never ticked, Conor isn’t sure. “Something weird is going on.”

“Weird? What kind of weird? Like, normal weird or normal even for Bury weird?” Conor asks, sitting down too. Eamon is pulling on the hems of his sleeves, stressing the threads and the fabric.

“Even for Bury weird. Probably only for Bury weird. Your neighbor, Craig, the one with the footsteps, he… He came into my shop today and he didn’t, there weren’t any footsteps, Conor. I don’t understand it.”

“Maybe it was just weird perception.” Conor suggests, trying to stave off Eamon’s worries because, really, what bad things could happen in Bury? “Like, you just couldn’t see them because of the way the light was shining through the windows or something like that.” The answer seems to satisfy Eamon, at least for right then.

But the answer wasn’t right and it wasn’t just a trick of the light and something is very wrong in Bury because the next day when Craig walks by, he leaves no footprints.

Something is happening, something strange, Bury is changing. The town that Conor never thought would change is changing and it shouldn’t be, but it is and the storm on the horizon inches closer. 

Other things start to change too. People’s powers are disappearing, dwindling slowly into nothingness. There is a veil of silence that falls around the town, heavy and suffocating and just wrong. 

People start to leave, one by one by one. Craig is gone a week after his footsteps disappear, house left nearly full, he’d crammed what he could fit into his car. Conor watches him drive away and Conor, he can’t help but feeling afraid, something he hasn’t felt in a long time. 

The librarian leaves, abandoning her books and dusty shelves and everything she owned and Conor can’t help but wonder if she’ll be okay. If she loses her power, if she starts aging again, how quickly will it happen? How much time does she have left?

People leave in the dead of night too, like they’re trying to sneak out of Bury before Bury even realizes that its people are fleeing, that its residents are scared, that they all know something is wrong and they want to get away before it’s too late for them because what happens when it’s too late for them?

Conor wakes up one morning and finds an orange balloon taped to his front door, still stringless, but now childless too. It’s just a balloon, but it fills Conor with immense sadness.

He can’t seem to wrap his around the fact that people are leaving, why are they leaving? Why aren’t they trying to figure out what’s causing this? Why aren’t people investigating and looking and searching for an answer, a solution? Why are they just giving up? They’ve been here for so many years, so many decades, maybe even centuries, how can they abandon their town so easily?

Conor can’t understand, he is so attached to Bury and all of its people and all of their strange traits and the buildings that spring up in the middle of the night. But can he still be attached to Bury when the people start leaving and the streets are empty and the same buildings that appeared are now left empty in the same suddenness with which they came? He isn’t sure.

Conor makes it rain one afternoon, he’s glad he can still do that, that he can still control his power. It’s not a storm, just light rain, warm rain, as he starts mixing together the bread that he’ll bake for dinner. His hands are covered in flour and he desperately wants to feel his rain on his skin, so he goes to stand in front of his house, to let all of his worries melt away with the water, even if that will only last for a few minutes. 

But Eamon is sitting on the porch steps, shoulders shaking as the water soaks his hair and his clothes and, oh God, he’s crying and Conor has never seen him cry. 

“Eamon, what’s wrong?” Conor rushes over, nearly tripping over himself as he descends the stairs. He helps Eamon stand up and Eamon shakes his head, blinking tears and rain from his eyes. 

“I don’t… Conor, I can’t leave Bury. I’ve been here for so long and- and I don’t know what’s left for me outside, I don’t think anything is.” Eamon’s voice is so quiet, nearly drowned by the falling rain and Conor is reminded of a night and running and falling and nothingness, but he pushes those memories to the back of his mind. “What will we do if we have to leave, Conor?”

“We won’t have to leave.” Conor reassures him. “We still have our powers, we’re both okay, nothing bad is happening to us, nothing bad happened to anyone. We’re going to stay here, Eamon. And even in the unlikely instance that we have to leave, we’ll find somewhere to live. We’ll find somewhere to be and we’ll be together and we’ll be okay, yeah?”

“I don’t want this to split us up.” Eamon wipes tears from his cheeks, a useless movement as rain is still falling on them both.

“It’s not going to.” Conor promises. “It won’t, it can’t, I won’t let it. I’m never going to leave you, Eamon.”

They go inside eventually, but Conor only makes the rain stop after Eamon falls asleep beside him and he relishes in the quiet, in the small noises Eamon makes when he’s asleep. Conor meant it when he said that he’d never leave Eamon. In all the futures in front of him that he could imagine, there wasn’t a single one without Eamon. 

The woman in the rocking chair leaves without warning. She is there one day and gone the next, her rocking chair still creaking back and forth, but she isn’t there. Conor misses her more than he thought he would. 

Eventually, Conor and Eamon are the last two people in Bury. Conor should have expected the day to come when they were alone, but he never expected how lonely it would feel, how… Frightening.

Eamon stops working in his store, what’s the point if there’s no one else to go there? He still goes to get groceries for them, but that’s the only time he goes. They take to walking around town together, arms linked, stepping through places that used to be full of people, but are now empty, lifeless. 

Bury is still a strange town, just not in the way it used to be. Strange because it’s empty, strange because there are only two people left, strange because Eamon’s store is always full of groceries and no one is there to restock it. Strange because it’s lonely. Strange because Conor misses how the town used to feel, so mysterious and weird and amazing.

Eamon’s skin is growing colder, Conor is worried about him, but he doesn’t bring it up, doesn’t ask questions. If there is one thing that Conor can keep alive in bury, it is not asking questions. 

Conor is slowly losing his storms, he can feel them draining from his blood and his soul and his hair starts to lie flatter. It is horrifying and Conor feels so lacking without them, he can only make it drizzle for a few minutes now.

Bury is a ghost town and Conor starts to think that maybe he and Eamon are becoming ghosts too, maybe Bury is making them again, just like it made them after they first came here, when they were given their powers and pushed into the relaxed bustle of this small town. Only this time, it’s stripping their powers away like the people it cared about ran away, it is recreating them in its own image. Maybe that’s what it’s been doing all along and maybe they all realized that, but no one knew for sure because no one asked questions and no one was sure about how much they were supposed to know, how much they needed to know, how much was actually known. 

The storm on the horizon grows ever closer, looming over Bury, invisible, waiting, jaws open and fingers reaching. It is hungry and it is tired of waiting.

There is a storm that breaks the skies and the thunder shakes the earth and the lightning splits the clouds in too and Conor did not summon it, Conor did not create it, it is here of its own accord and Eamon is not in the house and Conor is scared for him, but he grabs a jacket, runs out into the rain, searching, he needs to find Eamon.

Bury is sliding, dripping down the very seams of reality, houses are slanted and sidewalks end abruptly before pitching downwards and nothing seems real and everything is too bright under the thunderstorm and the whole town looks like the far East Side. 

The far East Side. And Conor knows that’s where Eamon is and he starts to run towards it and the buildings start becoming dilapidated, stretched, falling, and Conor stops before the edge, before the drop off, before the abyss, he’s at the mouth of the street and about halfway down it, there is the end. And there is Eamon. 

That similar night from so long ago flashes in his head.

The rain has stopped for just a second, but the wind is blowing, whipping Eamon’s hair around his face and Conor shouts his name as loud as he can. Eamon turns from the abyss, looks at Conor, Conor comes closer, until he’s barely a few feet from Eamon.

“Stay back!” Eamon shouts and Conor stands still, hesitating. “Don’t come any closer, Conor, don’t come any closer. You need to leave now.”

“What?” Conor is confused, words are sticking in his throat, tears prick in his eyes. “I- Okay, we can leave, we can leave, Eamon, let’s go.”

“I can’t go with you.” Eamon’s voice is rough and torn and he sounds like he’s about to cry. Lightning splits above them and everything is bright for barely a second. “I need you to leave, Conor. I love you and you need to leave.”

“Why do I need to leave?” Conor asks, he’s crying now, he doesn’t even realize it, but tears are dripping down his cheeks. “I’ll leave, I will, but you need to come with me.” Conor takes a step forward and Eamon takes one back, now standing precariously on the edge of reality.

“Leave!” Eamon shouts, he’s crying now too, they’re both crying. “Conor, I need you to leave. I know you said you’d stay with me forever, but I need you to take that back.” Eamon blinks, takes a shuddering breath. “You’re going to die if you stay here and I should’ve told you when I first knew, I should’ve told you so long ago, but I didn’t and here you are. You’re so stubborn, God, you’re stubborn.”

“What are you talking about?” Conor cries, fed up with the mystery and the running around the subject because he’s asking questions now and he needs answers that only Eamon can give to him.

“You know what I am, Conor, and I know what I am and I thought that maybe when I lost my powers it would just disappear.” Eamon laughs and he is bitter and he is crying. “But it won’t, Conor, it isn’t, I can feel it and it’s expanding and it’s underneath my skin and I don’t know if I’m it or if it’s me, but it’s going to break me, it’s going to split me open like I’m a husk and it’s going to tear everything apart and I’m going to tear everything apart and I’m going to kill you, Conor, I don’t want to kill you, Conor.” Thunder shakes the ground beneath their feet, the sky is only growing darker. “I need you to leave, I can’t kill you, I can’t let you see this.” And suddenly, Conor understand. He understands why Eamon is at the far East Side and why he’s standing so close to the edge and why Bury is making it storm and why Bury is making the houses fall. It’s about to lose its last two residents. 

“You’re going to throw yourself into nothingness.” Conor breathes and it’s barely audible with the wind, but Eamon nods. “Eamon, don’t, we can find a way to fix this, everything will be okay, we’ll be okay, you’ll be okay.” Eamon shakes his head. “Eamon…” Conor walks forward, slowly, Eamon doesn’t try to stop him, and Conor kisses him.

And Conor feels it all, the everything underneath Eamon’s skin that is stretching him, beating itself against his bones and his blood and it’s about to break and it’s about to be free and it is going to destroy everything and it is going to destroy Eamon and Bury and Conor and the world and everything.

Lightning splits, rain starts to pour, Eamon pushes him back and clutches at his head, groaning.

“Leave!” Eamon shouts, eyes closed tightly. “Leave now!”

And Conor, sobbing, crying, he turns and he runs and he runs and he runs and the rain is so cold and Bury is trying to keep him their, reaching up from pavement and from earth, grasping at his shoes and his legs and Conor keeps running, leaving behind his town and his life and Eamon, he’s leaving Eamon, but he has too.

He knows that he will never see Eamon again and that Eamon is trying to save him and Eamon is trying to help him, Eamon is only doing this because he loves him, but that doesn’t mean that it hurts any less and his heart feels like it’s going to break in his chest and he feels the last bit of electricity in him fall with his tears.

He stops running as soon as he gets out of Bury and as soon as he gets out of Bury, it stops raining. He wipes his eyes, tries to stop crying.

And then he glances up and sees the stars and the moon and the night sky and he breaks, crying again. Eamon is gone and yet the stars still shine, even though one of their own was just extinguished. Do they know? Do they care? 

There’s a noise, the hum of an engine and a car comes to a halt beside Conor and the window is rolled down.

“You need a ride?” The man inside offers and Conor nods, scrubbing at his face as he climbs in the passenger seat. “Dude, you alright?”

“Yeah, I’m just… Yeah, I’m alright.” Conor answers.

“Normally I don’t pick people up, but there’s a big storm coming this way and I didn’t want you to get caught in it.” The man eases the truck back into driving. “Where are you headed?”

“Anywhere.” Conor answers, looking down at his lap. His clothes are completely dry and when he turns around in his seat to look behind him, Bury isn’t there. Conor would think that maybe Bury never existed, maybe Bury was never real in the first place, except for the fact that he can remember the way it felt when he kissed Eamon for the first time and he can remember in great detail the way Eamon walked and talked and acted and laughed and he’s sure that he couldn’t imagine someone as great as Eamon. And he’s wearing Eamon’s jacket. 

The road continues in front of him, lit up by headlights that also illuminate a future he never imagined for himself, a future without Eamon. 

**Author's Note:**

> well that's that. you can find me @ taptaptapping.tumblr.com i swear that i'm friendly. if you've got any questions, comments, or otherwise, you can leave them below and i'll answer them!


End file.
